Part 4 (1/2)
”Who is this roysterer?” asked Parsons, loftily
”Will Cary, of Clovelly; an awful heretic: and here come more behind”
And as he spoke four or five reat dikes, and thundered on behind the party; whose horses, quite understanding what ga; and in anotherover rease”
Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, supported the character of Mr Evan Morgans well enough; and he would have really enjoyed hionies of fear lest those precious saddle-bags in front of hi to the earth, expose to the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps to the gaze of heretic eyes, such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secret correspondences, seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the very thought of their being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders But the future ave himself up at once to abject despair, and as he buht vainly for coue
”Mater inteh! I am down! Adhaesit pavimento venter!--No! I am not! El dilectum tuum e potestate canis--Ah! Audisti h!--thy account in favor of my poor--oh, sharpness of this saddle! Oh, whither, barbarous islanders!”
Now riding on his quarter, not in the rough track-way like a cockney, but through the soft heather like a sportsht e all knoell by this time, Richard Grenville by naht before, and then ridden out with the, after the wholesolens at Buckish, by help of Mr Coffin's hounds froood a Latiner as Ca both the scraps of psalside of Mr Eustace Leigh, and at the first check said, with ts towards the two strangers-- ”I hope Mr Leigh will do uests I should be sorry, and Mr Cary also, that any gentle strangers should beco who they are who honor our western Thule with a visit; and showing them ourselves all due requital for the co which poor Eustace could do (especially as it was spoken loud enough for all bystanders), was to introduce in due for the na the terrible face with its quiet searching eye, felt like a brace of partridge-poults cowering in the stubble, with a hawk hanging ten feet over their heads
”Gentlemen,” said Sir Richard blandly, cap in hand, ”I fear that your allop If you will perroom, who is behind, to disencumber you of them and carry them to Chapel, you will both confer an honor on me, and be enabled yourselves to see the mort more pleasantly”
A twinkle of fun, in spite of all his efforts, played about good Sir Richard's eye as he gave this searching hint The two Welsh gentlereat haste and fatigue fro journey, contrived to fall to the rear and vanish with their guides, as soon as the slot had been recovered
”Will!” said Sir Richard, pushi+ng alongside of young Cary
”Your worshi+p?”
”Jesuits, Will!”
”May the father of lies fly aith them over the nearest cliff!”
”He will not do that while this Irish trouble is about Those fellows are come to practise here for Saunders and Desmond”
”Perhaps they have a consecrated banner in their bag, the scoundrels! Shall I and young Coffin on and stop them? Hard if the honest ive the devil rope, and he will hang hiue at home, and thine eyes too, Will”
”How then?”
”Let Clovelly beach be watched night and day like any mousehole No one can land round Harty Point with these south-westers Stop every felloho has the ghost of an Irish brogue, coo he out, and send hiuard Bude-haven, sir”
”Leave that towill take the sea at the Abbey”
And on they crashed down the Hartland glens, through the oak-scrub and the great crown-ferns; and the baying of the slow-hound and the tantaras of the horn died away farther and fainter toward the blue Atlantic, while the conspirators, with lightened hearts, pricked fast across Bursdon upon their evil errand But Eustace Leigh had other thoughts and other cares than the safety of his father's two uests, important as that was in his eyes; for he was one of the h in his case it could hardly be called sweet) froe He had seen her in the town, and for the first time in his life fallen utterly in love; and now that she had come down close to his father's house, he looked on her as a lareedy wolf, which he felt hi of chivalry, self- sacrifice, or purity in it; those were virtues which were not taught at Rheims Careful as the Jesuits were over the practical morality of their pupils, this severe restraint had little effect in producing real habits of self-control What little Eustace had learnt of woar as the rest of their teaching What could it be else, if instilled by e which produced the foul novels of Cinthio and Bandello, and compelled Rabelais in order to escape the rack and stake, to hide the light of his great wisdoe in which the Roalized tyranny, and the laity, by a natural and pardonable revulsion, had exalted adultery into a virtue and a science? That all love was lust; that all woh an ecclesiastical sin, was so pardonable, if not necessary, as to be hardly a athered from the hints of his preceptors; for their written works bear to this day fullest and foulest testimony that such was their opinion; and that their conception of the relation of the sexes was really not a whit higher than that of the profligate laity who confessed to theed to marry Rose Salterne, with a wild selfish fury; but only that he ht be able to claim her as his own property, and keep all others fro helprowth of heart and soul, his oere inextricably wrapt up, he had never dreary with that, hich otherwise He ry; and therefore the sanction of the Church was the more ”probable and safe” course But as yet his suit was in very embryo He could not even tell whether Rose knew of his love; and he wasted ht upon his sleepless bed, and rose nextover to her uncle's house, and lingering about the fruit which he dared not snatch
CHAPTER IV
THE TWO WAYS OF BEING CROST IN LOVE
”I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more”--LOVELACE
And what all this while has become of the fair breaker of so many hearts, to whom I have not yet even introducedin the little farreen depths of the valley of Co asthus shut out fros at Bideford, and forced to keep a Martinlen So lonely was she, in fact, that though she regarded Eustace Leigh with soreat deal of suspicion, she could not find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he came down to the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on I know not ould-be errand, alh at these visits, and the latter took care always to h was a gentle squire and a good custohter and they poor cousins, so it would not do either to quarrel with her; and besides, the prettytricks, generally contrived to get her oheresoever she went; and she herself had been wise enough to beg her aunt never to leave theht of Mr Eustace, only she must have some one to talk with down here” On which her aunt considered, that she herself was but a simple country-woman; and that townsfolks' ways of course must be very different from hers; and that people knew their own business best; and so forth, and let things go on their oay Eustace, in the meanwhile, who kneell that the difference in creed between him and Rose was likely to be the very hardest obstacle in the way of his love, took care to keep his private opinions well in the background; and instead of trying to convert the folk at the ave it away to the old woreed that after all, for a Papist, he was a Godly youngtaken counsel with Campian and Parsons on certain political plots then on foot, cao to church the next Sunday Where Messrs Evan Morgans and Morgan Evans, having crammed up the rubrics beforehand, behaved themselves in a most orthodox and unexceptionable ood folks, and then went ho himself that he had taken in parson, clerk, and people; not knowing in his siood wife in the parish was saying to the other, ”He turned Protestant? The devil turnedhypocrite”
But if the two Jesuits found it expedient, for the holy cause in which they were embarked, to reconcile themselves outwardly to the powers that were, they were none the less busy in private in plotting their overthrow
Ever since April last they had been playing at hide-and-seek through the length and breadth of England, and now they were only lying quiet till expected news fro of the West” should sweep fro, excoate usurper, who falsely called herself the Queen of England
For they had as stoutly persuaded themselves in those days, as they have in these (with a real Baconian contempt of the results of sensible experience), that the heart of England was really with the to the boso up Elizabeth to be led in chains to the feet of the rightful Lord of Creation, the Old Man of the Seven Hills And this fair hope, which has been skipping just in front of them for centuries, always a step farther off, like the place where the rainbow touches the ground, they used to announce at tih One day, indeed, as Eustace entered his father's private rooh in dispute; Parsons as usual, blustering; Mr Leigh peevishly deprecating, and Ca to pour oil on the troubled waters Whereat Eustace (for the good of the cause, of course) stopped outside and listened
”My excellent sir,” said Mr Leigh, ”does not your very presence here sho I am affected toward the holy cause of the Catholic faith? But I cannot in the lishland?” said Parsons: ”A heretic and schismatic Babylon, whereof it is written, 'Coues' Yea, what is a country? An arbitrary division of territory by the princes of this world, who are naught, and coht They are created by the people's will; their existence depends on the sanction of hiiven in heaven and earth--our Holy Father the Pope Take away the latter, and what is a king?--the people who have made him may unmake hiiance to Queen Elizabeth!”
”Yes, sir, you have, sir; and, as I have shown at large in iance from the moment that the bull of Pius the Fifth declared her a heretic and excommunicate, and thereby to have forfeited all doht you should have known already, that since the year 1569, England has had no queen, no istrates, no laws, no lawful authority whatsoever; and that to own allegiance to any English lish court of law, is to disobey the apostolic precept, 'How dare you go to law before the unbelievers?' I tell you, sir, rebellion is now not merely permitted, it is a duty”
”Take care, sir; for God's sake, take care!” said Mr Leigh ”Right or wrong, I cannot have such language used in my house For the sake of my wife and children, I cannot!”
”My dear brother Parsons, deal ently with the flock,” interposed Cah probable, as I well know, in the eyes of h here; the opposite is at least so safe that Mr Leighit After all, are we not sent hither to proclaiood Catholics from a burden which has seemed to them too heavy?”
”Yes,” said Parsons, half-sulkily, ”to allow all Balaams ill to sacrifice to Baal, while they call themselves by the name of the Lord”
”My dear brother, have I not often reminded you that Naaman was allowed to bow himself in the house of Rimmon? And can we therefore complain of the office to which the Holy Father has appointed us, to declare to such as Mr Leigh his especial grace, by which the bull of Pius the Fifth (on whose soul God have mercy!) shall henceforth bind the queen and the heretics only; but in no ways the Catholics, at least as long as the present tyranny prevents the pious purposes of the bull?”
”Be it so, sir; be it so Only observe this, Mr Leigh, that our brother Campian confesses this to be a tyranny Observe, sir, that the bull does still bind the so-called queen, and that she and her istrates are still none the less usurpers, nonentities, and shadows of a shade And observe this, sir, that when that which is lawful is excused to the weak, it re The seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal did not slay his priests; but Elijah did, and won to hiood reward And if the rest of the children of Israel sinned not in not slaying Eglon, yet Ehud's deed was none the less justified by all laws human and divine”
”For Heaven's sake, do not talk so, sir! or I lon, and slaughters, and tyrannies? Our queen is a very good queen, if Heaven would but grant her repentance, and turn her to the true faith I have never been troubled about religion, nor any one else that I know of in the West country”
”You forget Mr Trudgeon of Launceston, father, and poor Father Mayne,” interposed Eustace, who had by this time slipped in; and Caland also has been honored by its martyrs, as well aslad to find any one on whoainst ht Cuthbert Mayne to the gallows, and turned Mr Trudgeon (he was always a foolish hot-head) out of house and home, but just such treasonable talk as Mr Parsons ar of me and my children, as he will before he has done”
”The Blessed Virgin forbid!” said Cain forbid? But you must help her to forbid it, Mr Caainst bulls, and Agnus Deis, and blessed grains, if the Pope's bull of 1569 had nota poor creature's saving his soul in the true Church without putting his neck into a halter by denying the queen's authority”
”What, sir?” almost roared Parsons, ”do you dare to speak evil of the edicts of the Vicar of Christ?”
”I? No I didn't Who says I did? All I meant was, I am sure-- Mr Campian, you are a reasonable h only meant, I am sure, that the Holy Father's prudent intentions have been so far defeated by the perverseness and invincibleof the heretics, that that which was in itself lish Catholics has been perverted to their haret into his father's good graces again, ”my father attaches blame, not to the Pope--Heaven forbid!--but to the pravity of his enemies”
”And it is for this very reason,” said Caht with us the present merciful explanation of the bull”